Find Things that are Precious to You
by Shadowking2015
Summary: A 13-year-old autistic Medium - in an exceedingly dangerous world of 90% ocean where the term does not yet exist - who can only hear ghosts comes across an entire island full of them. They DESPERATELY want him to lead one Nico Robin back to them. Join the person known only as Ritsuka as he tries to figure out where he belongs and tries to give an entire civilization some peace.
1. Chapter 1: What Did You Leave Behind?

Find Things that are Precious to You

It was a strangely peaceful day; I was mostly alone and resting on my rowboat, cross-legged, in the middle of the sea. Considering I had eaten the Medium Medium Fruit, I should have considered this dangerous. Sometimes, I still do. But one could say that I had partly rowed myself away from my home island looking to die, and these waters looked like a good place to die…

"No. Bad thoughts, bad thoughts!" I said, being careful to not catapult myself back onto my rowboat, which probably would've led to my death anyway. I mean 'careful' as in landing on my butt instead.

"Ooow", I said. And I just sat for awhile, one hand on my forehead and the other hand on my oars, contemplating life, the meaning of the universe, all that stuff… alright, so maybe that was a lie; I was thinking back to my unimportant past: "'You should've been different', they said. 'You'd make a fine meat shield', they said — well, some of them for the latter, anyway — Annndd, cutting off at that immediately."

"Ritsuka?" A ghostly voice called to me.

"Huh!?" I said, startled out of my thoughts. Then, remembering the voice in question, I looked up and said: "Um, hi, Kii-san. What's up?"

Silence.

"Um, Kii-san, is there something wrong?" I finally said, tilting my head like a bird.

Kii-san, aka Kiito Arashi, was the most successful gangster on my home island, Las Camp; she led most of the others in keeping relative order and away from other islands. Kii-san was also shot by what appeared to be stray bullets in a gang war, and likely made sure as a ghost that those responsible paid for it with their lives. To this day, I'm not exactly sure why she decided to follow me off the island.

"Yes," Kii-san said. "You were rocking, and your face looked like a stormcloud. You OK?"  
I noticed that my hold on my oars was tighter than I intended, so I quickly tried to loosen up. "Yeah," I said. 'You know. Like a liar.' "I'm fine. I was just thinking about the past. Thanks for asking, though." I tried to force a smile. I didn't know if it worked.

"You don't normally seem to have a happy face, but I can still tell when you're forcin' it, kid," The voice of a child said. Apparently it was just Eiji-chan, trying to be gruff and cool.

"You're the kid, Eiji-chan. Remember?" I barked back at the other ghost. I _hated_ having to correct Eiji on that; having done so enough times would've made anyone hate it a little. He just seemed to like bugging me in general; calling for a game of tag or hide-and-seek when he knew he'd win handily, calling me a kid when he was literally seven-years-old — or at least that was what he and the other ghosts kept telling me — and poking me with one of my oars… the last of which he was doing right now.

I felt my left eye twitch. "OK, Eiji-chan, you can stop now," I said, in the most placating voice I could manage. Admittedly, it wasn't much.

"Oh, come on, I wanna find where you're ticklish," Eiji said, to my mounting annoyance.

But Kii-chan stopped him, apparently: "OK, Eiji, that's enough. Mission accomplished."

"Fine," the annoyed ghost said, dropping the oar. Take that, brat - 'Annd, just remembered he's literally a dead child.' I thought.

Taking a moment to breathe, I said: "Thank you, both of you… Though I'm guessing there's another reason you're here?"

"Yeah," Kii-san said. "There's a cluster of ghosts further up ahead. They said they'd been dead for nearly twenty years and that their island was annihilated by the World Government. Well, that was what the more coherent ghosts said, anyway." Her delivery was as dispassionate as usual, and that signalled a return to equilibrium.

"Well, this'll give me a headache at best, and render me catatonic at worst," I said grimly.

Silence fell over the boat again.

"Yes, you two, I'm still going," I said in annoyance.

"Never doubted that,", the two ghosts said in unison, as I got to rowing.

… Eventually, I just started saying "sea" for every row I made; apparently, Kii-san and Eiji-chan went pretty far when I asked them to leave me be for a bit.

"Sea. Sea. Sea. Sea. Sea. Sea - What the Hell!?"

It was… I could try describing it, but I don't think I'll ever capture the full scope of this madness. There were hundreds of voices clustered on an empty point in the sea; apparently that spot used to be their island. Most of them were screaming, wailing, sobbing. Some had apparently formed some kind of mishmash monster out of their sheer screeching anger, and I wasn't clear at the time about whether or not they could change back; the Sea King-esque cries were all I needed to hear. Some seemed to be trying to call up a storm.

And according to what Kii-san and Eiji-chan on the way over here, others still were silent as the grave, with their faces lined as though they'd given up on being able to soothe their fellow islanders. Yet that wasn't the case… right?

I could only stare in shock at that baleful spot in the sea, a spot that wouldn't have meant anything to anyone else. Then I had to cover my ears, wanting to get away from this hellhole ASAP, but _not_ wanting to leave these people to _this._

I was about to row closer, but Eiji-chan put a cold, _cold_ hand on me. "Stay here." He said. "We got this."

… No. No they did not. Because in a minute that seemed like an eternity to me, the screaming ghosts saw me and started, well, _screaming in my face!_ "Give us our island back!" Some said. "Give us our lives back!" Others said. "Get us out of here!" said others still.

… It was a bit much. "Stop," I said. Still more screaming. "Stop it." Still more screaming. "Please, just stop!" The screaming continued. "Stop! _Stop!_" And… the screaming stopped. Was that really all of it, or was I just tuning the rest out? I didn't know, I tried to just… get myself to _think_ again.

… I heard some of the ghosts mumbling out that they were _sorry. _I had to chuckle a bit, even as I started to uncover my ears: "Sorry? Sorry for what? You're all in pain, aren't you?"

"Yeah, but… you're crying." One ghost said.

"Huh?" I said. Then I checked, and as it turned out, I was. Huh. I quickly made to wipe the tears away.

"That face you were making just now? That look is what we intended to give to the people who destroyed us. Who destroyed our home. We… We can't even begin to apologize for what we've just done."

Well… I didn't have an answer for that — well, _most _of that: "Don't worry. I've had worse."

Breathing again, I said: "OK. So. What do you want me to do here?"

"I can answer that," The voice of a grown woman said. "I want you to find my daughter, and I want you to bring her back here."


	2. Chapter 2: The Medium's Turn to Rage

Chapter 2:

OK… I admit, I'd been shaking ever since I somehow rowed myself and my boat to this blasted to high Hell spot in the ocean. I only just realized as I was trying to process the request that just entered my ears, I guess?

Although some of my shaking was now because of a slowly building rage: "Ssooo… Let me get this straight. You, have a daughter. Not had. _Have._ And you _all_ want this person brought back over to this spot, which used to be her home? Just… tell me something: Did this daughter of yours happen to _see said home get annihilated right before her eyes!?" _I accentuated the last point by raising my arms halfway, as what I hoped would be a further indicator that this mystery person's home _didn't exist, and that maybe __**bringing her back here wasn't a good idea!**_ The very thought of it brought back certain unpleasant memories; home was where I was ignored for being different, and sometimes outright bullied for the same reason I was ignored. Amongst other things...

There were different reasons for me and Question Mark not wanting to go back home, but there was similar logic; "home" brought back unpleasant memories.

This mystery person's dense mother responded, with what sounded like regret: "Yes. She did." Yeah, regret wasn't cutting it here.

At this point, I lost it: "Then maybe she shouldn't be brought back here! I repeat: _NOT HERE! __**And ESPECIALLY not if she knows that all of YOU are still HERE!**_**" **I breathed a bit — or a lot — and surprisingly, the ghosts held their tongues; maybe this woman was their leader? Maybe it was just common decency because of earlier or now? "If there's any place that would cause her to go back, this is it! So tell me, and be honest with me… how and why do all of you feel that _this _is the best way to ease your pain?"

And with that, I was done. I always felt like curling into a ball no matter _who _I yelled at, but with a group of dead people who were still suffering… yeah, I really did curl up into a ball. My brain was screaming at me to apologize to them, but… I wouldn't. I **couldn't.** Not after what they just said to me.

I finally noticed Eiji-chan and Kii-san had floated back over to me when Kii-san had just lightly put her finger on my shoulder; ghosts felt freezing cold in general, so it was nice that Kii-san had remembered that.

Eiji-chan was silent, likely trying to act like a some kind of unbreakable shield. I could say for certain that he was doing it better than I ever could in this crowd.

"It's OK." Kii-san said. "There's no need to apologize." My brain was only barely listening to me now, but… it was comforting to hear Kii-san say that; I didn't uncurl myself, but I think I smiled a little.

The mystery mother started to talk again: "I'm told your name is Ritsuka. Allow me to introduce myself: I am Nico Olvia. I was one of the archaeologists of the island known as Ohara."

"Ohara?" I asked. "Why didn't I hear of this island until just now?"

"Because it was erased from history!" Several of the ghosts yelled. OK, maybe it was a stupid question, but I needed to know for sure.

'I assume this is going back to my other question.'

Sure enough, Mystery Mother continued, and strangely I could feel her sitting beside my curled-up self as she talked: "Ritsuka-kun, we asked you to bring my daughter back here because we want to see her alive, safe, _happy._ She's the last person from Ohara remaining, the last reminder that we and our home ever _existed_… everyone else but me is completely tied to this spot, and even then, it's agony for me to leave. I've found my daughter time and time again, but every time I do… no one seems to want her for who she is, and she doesn't feel like she belongs anywhere. I've seen people betray my own daughter time and time again, I've seen her **kill** people just to survive, I've come to feel like _I've_ betrayed her… _please_, bring her back here, and help her smile again. Help her _laugh_ again. Help her _**belong**_ again. And it'll be painful if she comes back here, true, but… none of us can rest until we can see that my daughter, Nico Robin, _has found her place in the world._

I took it all in; this entire plea, the story of this Nico Robin's life, the fact that all of these ghosts' chances of moving on hinged on this one person finding some kind of fulfillment…

I uncurled myself, slowly but surely, until I was just sitting with my legs outstretched, looking at the sky and scratching my head. "OK," I said. "I'll help you. But it'll take some time."

"Clearly," Olvia-san and several other ghosts snarked. I could hear Eiji-chan and Kii-san were among them. They were probably rolling their eyes, too. So was I.

"Well, anything else I should know?" I said to the ghosts, referring to the fact that I still hadn't been told what this Nico Robin _freakin' looked like!_ I didn't explicitly need to know what the dead looked like, at least not often — as much as I wanted to know what they looked like in life so that I could still put a face to the name. But I could still see the living, so at least a face to go by would've been nice.

A worn piece of paper was given to me, and it looked like a wanted poster: ""Devil Child", Nico Robin. OK, Thanks." I got the disturbing feeling that reading the bounty out loud would get me snapped in half, despite my utter lack of any desire to turn Robin-san in.

I silently got ready, and rowed the Hell out of the place that used to be Ohara. Little did I know at the time, a supposedly-agonized ghost would follow me every step of the way.


End file.
